


We're Different, So What?

by Ace_of_All_Trades



Series: We're Different, So What? [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Aromantic Asexual Remy, Asexual Character, Asexual Logic | Logan Sanders, Bigender Character, Bigender Deceit, Bullying, Deceit | Janus Sanders Has a Different Name, Emo Deceit, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Remy, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Minor Violence, Multi, Nerd Virgil, Non-Graphic Violence, Prep Patton, Punk Logan, Roleswap, Roman is basically a fusion of Micheal and Jeremy, Slurs, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Trans Male Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Trans Male Character, Verbal Abuse, Violence, Xenophobia, YouTuber Remy, and I'm not sorry for anything I do to him or anyone else., deadnaming, geek Roman
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 11:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19927222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_of_All_Trades/pseuds/Ace_of_All_Trades
Summary: High school is hell, but we navigate it well, 'cuz what we do is we make it a two... three.... four..... five player game.





	We're Different, So What?

Virgil didn’t try to be a nerd. He just guessed that if you’re smart, get good grades, and are liked by teachers, that made you a nerd. He didn’t complain about it. Sure, being “The Nerd” made finding friends kind of hard, but he wasn’t really looking for friends anyway. He spent most of his free time studying, just to try to get rid of his constant nervousness over failing his classes. Most of the time it didn’t work though, so he spent pretty much the entirety of the school year stressed over his grades.

One of the good things, though, was that Virgil wasn’t bullied much. Teachers noticed when Virgil was acting differently, so he couldn’t be targeted for long before somebody noticed, and as long as he wore his baggy clothes and had a binder on during school he was less at risk of bullying, especially since he knew how to contour to look more masculine.

And because of this, when Virgil walked into school the first day of junior year, all he was worried about was getting to class on time. And finding his locker. And all the classrooms. And whether of not the teachers would hate him. And if he had all his supplies for class. And if this would finally be the year he failed all his classes. And making sure he wasn’t outed to anyone. But that’s all. Nothing too overwhelming. Yeah, other than that he was fine.

Roman’s concerns on the first day of school were much different. He didn't want anything more than to be popular and well-liked, but that wasn’t a realistic goal for him. His extreme interest in Disney was probably the least of his concerns, since he was also a band geek and thespian, although he had too much stage fright to do any acting. Add his introversion to the mix, and Roman was in a bad position on the social front. Add the fact that he was an absolutely hopeless gay, and he was the perfect target. So instead his goal for his school career was to survive without getting the life beaten out of him.

Roman zipped up his jacket as he walked up to the school. He was using the jacket to cover up the fact that he had a Moana shirt on, but he was starting to think that maybe the deep red color of the jacket might be counter-productive in trying to avoid being noticed, but it was probably too late to take it back now. But he _could_ just skip school today. _No, my parents would definitely find out if I skipped the first day of school_ , Roman thought to himself as he forced himself to take the final steps into his high school. He had his shoulders hunched over, hoping to get by at least the morning without being noticed. Roman had no such luck, however, as he got shoulder checked by two seniors almost immediately upon walking into school. He was definitely off to a _great_ start. 

Roman’s day only got worse after that, when his locker got slammed shut so he ended up being late for his first class, he ended up not having anything to write with when all of his pencils got stolen, then he was late for the class after that after being tripped and having to pick up everything he dropped himself because of course nobody came to help him, even just associating with Roman would make somebody at risk of being targeted. If it weren't for being gay, which pretty much everyone knew about at this point, his tan complexion and natural accent would be warning enough to stay away from Roman if you wanted to survive high school. But not having any friends wasn’t _that_ bad, Roman reasoned with himself nearly every day. That just meant he had less people to disappoint or embarrass himself in front of.

However, Roman was reminded of the exception to this rule during lunch where he was sitting, lunch in his locker, a much-used notebook his only company. Patton Bunker had the same lunch period as him. Patton, probably the most popular guy in the school, and probably the cutest too. Patton, Roman’s crush since middle school, who Roman would never even get the chance to talk to, especially now that he was outed to basically the entire school. He could barely even look at Patton without getting mocked for it. Besides, Roman told himself, Patton has a girlfriend, he’s probably straight. Even if he wasn’t, Roman couldn’t think of any reason anyone would want to go out with him.

Despite this, Roman didn’t even realize notice that he was staring across the room, smiling at Patton until two familiar students walked up to him, blocking his view. The smile dropped from his face as his head dropped to avoid eye contact with either of the two other juniors.

“What’re you staring at? Huh?” one of the two said, leaning closer to Roman. “Oh, it’s your little crush over there, isn’t it?” Roman said nothing, keeping his head down.

“He’s pathetic, isn’t he?” the other student said, as if Roman wasn’t even there. “As if someone like Patton would want to be around a fag like him.” Roman already knew that, it was the way it was phrased that hurt.

They both paused as music started playing nearby. Roman glanced up to see where the music was coming from, and saw somebody leaning against the wall with a music player sitting beside him, glasses sitting on top of it. He was wearing a loose fitting black button-up and black jacket, and had a dark blue necktie hanging loosely from his neck. The most notable thing about him, though, was the patch of electric blue hair at the front of his head. The two quickly dismissed him once they heard “ _they’re gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books_ ” come from the speaker.

"What's this? Your diary?" One of them reached over and picked up Roman's notebook, needing another reason to harass him. Roman immediately panicked, reaching to grab it out of the teenager's hands, only to be pushed to the ground as he held it closer. He began flipping through the pages as Roman rushed to stand back up. "He's trying to be an artist!" The bully laughed as his friend looked at the notebook over his shoulder.

Roman ran back over, grabbing his notebook and trying to pry it away from the other two. "Give it back!" he shouted, his full accent coming through in his panic, which he immediately knew was bad, even before the laughter started.

"No wonder the alien boy doesn't talk, it doesn't even make sense when he does!" Roman was pushed back again. "Let's put this garbage where it belongs." The teen grabbed a handful of the paper in the notebook, ripping it out.

"NO!" Roman screamed, lunging at them, but the kid holding the notebook ignored him as he balled up the ripped papers and threw it over by the garbage can before reaching for more paper, while his friend grabbed Roman by his jacket and held him up to his face. "And what, are you gonna try and stop us, you spic?" Roman went quiet from fear.

"Cut it out." Roman heard a voice speaking behind him, and although he couldn't turn to look, it didn't sound like a teacher.

The kid holding Roman didn't move his attention from Roman. "This isn't your problem."

A hand wrapped in cloth shot out and grabbed one of the arms holding Roman. It pulled the arm from Roman before the owner of the hand pushed himself between Roman and his bully. Roman was surprised to see it was the kid who was playing the music, although he had taken off his necktie and jacket. "It damn well is now," he growled at the two people who were bullying Roman. 

They both turned their full attention to the newcomer, who was in an aggressive stance while separating Roman from his tormentors. The one holding the notebook threw it to the side. “You wanna make this fag your problem? Fine.” He stomped over, throwing a punch at the new teen as Roman scrambled to pick up his notebook and the balled up paper that had been ripped out of it. After picking up everything, he sat himself against a wall and watched in fear and confusion as the scene unfolded in front of him.

Roman’s defender seemed to already broken the nose of one of the two, although the broken nose didn’t seem to stop him from retaliating, so the blue-haired teen was outnumbered, but despite this he was holding up fairly well, from what Roman could tell from what he was able to see. Most of the hits didn’t even seem to land on him.

The fight only ended when three different teachers showed up and dragged all of them from each other, but continued verbally.

“You son of a bitch!” the teen with the bloody nose yelled. “I’ll get you for this!”

“You’re doing a pretty shitty job so far!” Blue Hair yelled back. The three were all practically dragged away from each other, the two that were messing with Roman being taken to the nurse’s office while Blue Hair was taken to the principal’s office.

Roman stayed where he was sitting against the wall for several more moments before standing back up and walking shakily back to his table. He opened up his notebook and slowly unfolded the balled-up paper, trying to see what he could salvage from the ruined papers covered in everything Roman’s personal progress at his goals had led up to.

“Why is it that everytime I hear about a fight in the school, you’re always involved, Logan?” The principal’s expression was more exhausted than anything as he looked down at where Logan was seated and gave him a lecture to which he had grown very familiar.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve already established this, but it’s because I’m the only person in this entire school who’ll actually do anything about the jerks.” Logan inspected his hands as he spoke. _Damn, that Tumblr post wasn’t shitting with me. Hand wraps seriously do help out in a fist fight._ “Anyway, I’m kind of busy, also I left most of my stuff in the cafeteria, so if we could just skip to the part where you give me detention for a week that’d be great.”

The principal sighed. “I just want to know why you won’t ever _learn_ from this. It’s the first day of the year and you’ve already gotten into a fight.”

Logan looked up with an annoyed expression. “Here’s the thing, the only thing I’ve learned in the two years and half a day I’ve been in high school is that I’m apparently the only person in this building whose moral compass isn’t a roulette wheel. What I just did was beat up couple of racists and homophobes.” From what Logan knew of the two, Sebastian and Ethan, their personalities could probably be reduced to those two words. “Now can I go? You already know my mom’s number, I don’t think you need me here to call her, and she’ll definitely give me her opinion when I get home.” _At least for as long as I stay there. A whole five minutes, probably. Five too many, if you ask me._ Logan breathed a strained sigh at the thought.

“I just hope you know there are better ways to solve your problems than to punch them.”

“I do, it’s just that punching is more effective.” Logan stood up. “Okay, so; try to stop punching idiots, a week of after school detentions, you’re very disappointed, I won’t be able to get into a good college if I keep this up. I got it. Can I go now?”

The principal waved a hand at Logan, rubbing his temples with the other hand. Logan walked out, but as he left he heard the principal speaking to himself. “If it weren’t for his good grades, I’d expel that boy as soon as possible.”

Logan made his way back to the cafeteria and was relieved to see the guy he just defended was still in the room. Logan walked over to everything he left on the floor where he had been sitting, putting on the jacket and necktie and putting his glasses and speaker in his pockets before walking over to the table where the kid was sitting with the notebook the two douchebags tried to take from him. Logan sat down next to him, noticing how he visibly tensed up before realizing that he wasn’t at any immediate danger. Logan started wondering how long he had gone before noticing this particular kid being bullied, and vowed to be even more attentive from then on. “You doing alright?” Logan asked him. 

He responded with a small nod of his head without even looking at Logan, instead facing the torn notebook paper. Logan looked down at it. The notebook seemed to be filled with writing and art, and seeing how much work went into the torn drawings, Logan understood why this guy was so intent on keeping it out of Ethan’s hands. “Y’know, these are pretty good.” His response was a weak shrug.

_I probably should’ve stepped in sooner_ , Logan thought, now that he saw how crushed this guy seemed. Yeah, he probably should’ve acted as soon as they took the notebook. The things the two said to him probably also did damage, but that wasn’t something this kid in front of Logan would’ve been able to see. “Let me see if I have any tape,” Logan told him as he went through his pockets. 

“I don’t get it.” Logan paused as he heard the guy quietly speaking. “Why would you want to help me out?”

“Because nobody else was gonna do anything.” Logan stopped searching his pockets so he could instead focus on talking.

“But I'm the worst person to talk to, let alone get into a fight over.” The teen raised his head to look at Logan. “Why would you go through the effort for someone you don’t even know?”

“Well first of all, in case you haven’t noticed, I'm not exactly focused on social status.” Logan always assumed that his appearance and reputation would say that for him, but he was beginning to realize that maybe his reputation wasn’t quite as widespread as he observed from his teachers’ sighs of defeat upon reading his name in the attendance list. “And if I’m able to make progress on getting every homophobe in the world to be scared of me, and I get to defend someone who definitely doesn’t deserve how they’re being treated-” Logan leaned back against the table “-well that’s an added bonus. Also you’ll probably get bothered a lot less now that I’ve defended you this once. So you’re welcome.”

He nodded. “Okay, thanks, I guess. Sorry you had to get into a fight though.”

Logan shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I barely felt a thing, and I didn’t get suspended. That’s all that matters to me. And anyway, I probably would’ve gotten into a fight today for some other reason, even if it wasn’t this one.” Logan held out one of his wrapped up hands. “Name’s Logan, by the way.”

The teen Logan was talking to looked at the outstretched hand for a moment, but looked back down instead of taking it. “Roman.”

Logan let his hand fall. “Well, it’s nice meeting you Roman.” It was at that time that the bell to release to the next class rang. Logan watched as Roman’s shoulders dropped and he closed his notebook, holding all of the torn up papers inside it.

“Yeah, sure, bye,” Roman said as he stood up and left, his head lowered. It was at that moment Logan immediately decided that looking out for Roman would become one of his number one priorities.

As Patton walked to his next class, the scene that he witnessed at lunch was stuck in his head. He didn’t want anyone to get picked on because of him, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Besides, Patton told himself, it wasn’t really because of him that the student was getting picked on. The two others did also make fun of him for the notebook, after all, so maybe they would have picked on him anyway. Plus it looked like somebody else was already trying to defend him, at least from what he saw before his girlfriend Kayla dragged him away. She only ever did care about drama if it involved her.

Still, Patton telling himself this didn’t help the guilt much. He couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he should have done something to help, except he knew that if he said anything he’d probably never be accepted by anyone again, and he didn’t want to risk that. He already put too much into maintaining his reputation. He was in an ongoing competition for the highest grades in the school, he became the captain of the soccer team, he had a good shot at being the section leader for the clarinets next year, everyone likes talking to him, heck, he even got a girlfriend. That was pretty much just the final touch to his social standing. 

Patton’s thoughts were interrupted when somebody ran up beside him. “Hey there Pat, long time no see,” they said.

Patton put on a bright smile as he turned to face him. “Yeah, it has been.” Patton let his smile fall again as the person walked down the hall. Patton stared after him, trying to remember his name. Honestly, at this point so many people were talking to him and saying they were friends with him, Patton could barely remember any of them. Patton was pretty sure most people who said they were friends with him had never actually talked to him in his life. Most of the time he didn’t really care about that though, it just made it kind of hard to figure out who actually wanted to be his friend and who just wanted a popularity boost. 

As Patton walked down to his next class, he started feeling like the world wanted him to feel guilty for not intervening when the kid was being picked on, because he heard people on the sides of the hallways talking about the fight that had broke out afterwards.

“Did you see that fight today in the cafeteria?”

“That Logan kid beat up Sebastian and Ethan.”

“He’s gotta have a death wish to pick a fight with someone like Sebastian, there’s no way he’ll get away with that.”

“Did you see the state the punk kid was in? There was barely a mark on him, and he was going two on one.”

“Yeah, that kid’s apparently been getting into fights since freshman year. Who knows how he’s gone this long without getting expelled.”

“He only stepped in when those two started pushing that Spanish kid around.”

Patton eventually put in his headphones, only taking them out once he entered the classroom he was headed to. If there was any more talking about the cafeteria fight, Patton didn’t hear it. Despite this, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to forget about it for a while. 

¬¬¬¬¬¬

Once school had ended, Roman gathered up his things as quickly as possible before leaving. He wanted to spend as little time in there as possible, especially after his notebook got torn up, although Logan was right; after that fight, nobody messed with Roman for the rest of the day, although he did notice several quick glances in his direction. Honestly, Roman felt kind of uncomfortable from all the looks, but it was definitely better than being picked on. 

It turned out Roman and Logan had a Spanish class together. Spanish, for obvious reasons, had always been Roman’s favorite class. He always got perfect grades in Spanish, and the teacher had always appreciated him being part of the class. Even so, he usually sat by himself in this class until that year, when Logan walked in and immediately sat beside Roman. Logan ended up being much more quiet during class than Roman was expecting. Logan participated in class pretty much every time there was an opportunity, but he didn’t interrupt class for any reason, which surprised Roman. He thought Logan would be more of a disruptive student than he seemed to be.

Roman was so busy thinking about school and Logan that he didn’t realize when he reached his door. He sat down his stuff by the door after walking in, pulling his notebook out of his backpack so he could begin his attempts at repairing it. As Roman walked over to the supply cabinet to get tape, he got stopped by his mom.

“ _Hola adorable, ¿cómo estuvo la escuela hoy?_ ” she asked him. Roman turned to answer, but even though he didn’t have the heart to lie right now, he also couldn’t bring himself to tell her the awful truth about how his day went. So instead he just looked back down without a word and walked to his room, his mom following close behind.

Roman sat down on his bed, hugging his legs against himself. His mom sat down beside him, pulling him against her side with one arm.

“ _Oh pobrecito. No te preocupes, mejorará, lo prometo,_ ” she said softly. Roman sighed as he leaned against her. _Would it though?_ he thought. It was only the first day of school and he had already gotten insulted for being gay, hispanic, and an artist, all at the same time. Why would his mom think his life would start getting better when junior year already started so horribly?

Logan had his entire body tensed up from the moment he entered his house. He kept his shoes and backpack on as he walked over to his room, ignoring the yells of his mother.

“You already got into a fight, and it’s only the first day of school! You don’t ever learn, do you? I’m the one that has to deal with it whenever you get yourself put into detention, and I’m gonna be the one to deal with it when you finally get kicked out of his school!”

Logan said nothing as he packed a change of clothes into his backpack, along with a couple other shirts. _She thinks it’s only_ her _problem when_ I _get detention?_ Logan thought as he double checked his backpack for his phone charger, toothbrush, and contact lens case. He walked straight past his mother once he was certain he had everything, heading back to the door, trying to keep from responding to his mother’s words.

“Are you trying to become a failure that can’t keep a job? Huh? Do you want to end up like me?!”

Logan’s hands curled into fists, his body stiffening. _She didn’t. She did not just say that._ Logan spun around to face her, standing right in front of the door, slamming the side of his fist against the wall. “You know why I’m not gonna end up like you?!” he screamed. “Because I don’t go around fucking everyone that makes eye contact with me!” Logan stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. His mother stood outside the doorway calling after him.

“Don’t you talk to your mother like that! Logan, you get back here!” 

Logan didn’t even look back, and it wasn’t until he turned the corner on the street that he heard his mother’s screaming slow to a stop.

“See you later Pat!

“Bye Patton!”

“Good job today Patton!”

Patton smiled brightly as he waved goodbye to all his teammates as they left, having just finished his first soccer practice of the year. He panted slightly as he dropped his hand down, leaning down to take off his cleats and put his regular shoes back on.

Once Patton had his shoes back on, he looked up and saw his mom waiting for him in her car. He picked up his backpack and shoes as he ran over to the car.

“So how was practice today?” she asked as Patton got in.

“It was alright,” Patton said as he closed the door, buckling his seatbelt. “The team could probably use some extra practice though.” The team. He didn’t know why he always phrased it like that, as if he wasn’t actually part of the team, despite the fact that he was the captain of the team.

“Do you have any homework?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it once we get home.” As expected, the conversation ended there. Patton’s mother usually just assumed that since he never mentioned anything going wrong, and since he always got good grades, then nothing had ever actually went wrong for Patton. He guessed she was right, though. After all, nothing bad ever really happened for Patton. And the fight today didn’t really have anything to do with him, so he didn’t have any reason to feel guilty about that, right?

“Are you finished Virgil?” Virgil’s math teacher asked after Virgil stood up from the desk he had been doing his homework at. 

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, see you tomorrow,” he said quietly before leaving. He dropped his stuff off in his locker before heading to the bathroom, listening closely to make sure nobody else was inside. Once Virgil was certain he was alone, he pulled makeup remover wipes out of his backpack, looking in the mirror as he removed the contouring he had put on for the school day. Virgil looked away as soon as he was certain all his makeup had come off. Next, he stepped into one of the stalls as he changed into the outfit he had brought with him.

Virgil kept his head to the floor as he walked out of the bathroom, and only looked back up once he had left the school. On his walk home, Virgil began saying different phrases to himself silently. “Hi mom; It was good; Yeah, I finished it at school.”

Once he reached the door to his house, he took a small breath before stepping inside. His mother saw him enter immediately.

“It’s nice to see you today Taylor,” Virgil’s mother said to him in an obviously passive-aggressive tone, and he immediately missed the teachers calling him Virgil. He didn’t let it show, though. 

“Yeah, I just wanted to make sure junior year started off well, so I stayed until I had my homework finished.” Virgil wasn’t exactly lying, but it was also because of the soccer team staying at the school for most of the day, so Virgil had to wait until all of them had left before he could wash off his makeup and change.

“Well, dinner’s finished, so you can eat before you get started on your chores.” His mother walked back to the dining room where his father was waiting, Virgil following silently. 

“So how was school today?” Virgil’s father asked while they ate.

Virgil shrugged. “It was alright,” he said. “There was a fight today during lunch.” 

Both of Virgil’s parents looked at him, and whether the judging looks on their faces were about him or the people who were in the fight, he honestly had no idea. Either way, Virgil immediately regretted bringing it up. 

“Really? What happened?” His father asked, his voice low.

“It looked like these two students were picking on someone, so this other kid stepped in to defend him. So then those three got into a fight.” 

“What happened to them?” His mother asked him.

“The two that were picking on the kid went to the nurse’s office, and then the other kid got sent to the principal’s office.”

Virgil’s mother nodded shortly. “Well he did make it physical, so that’s good that he got punished.” Virgil wanted to explain that the two bullies had technically made it physical, but he knew that wouldn’t actually help at all. His parents had already decided who they thought was in the wrong, and no amount of explaining would change their minds at this point. So instead he just stayed quiet for the rest of the day until he went to bed.


End file.
